Arxel's Tribe

Half-French, half-Slovenian, all weird. Yes, it's Arxel Tribe, the
brains behind games such as Ring, Faust, Trainz and .. er ..
Paddington Bear. The pan-European developer had a range of games on
show at this year's ECTS, including
Ring 2, the
sequel to their best-selling adventure game, loosely inspired by
Wagner's Ring cycle (rather than the cult Japanese horror movie of
the same name). Moving on from the old point and click days of
yore, Ring 2 features 3D characters against a pre-rendered
backdrop, producing some eye-catching graphics. The gameplay has
advanced somewhat as well, with less mind-destroying Myst-style
puzzles and more interaction with the environment.
Also on show was a very early demo build of
Hannibal,
a sequel of sorts to the cannibalistic character's last movie.
Sadly there wasn't much of a game to see at this stage, but the
graphics look respectable if a little dark. On the other side of
the stand
The
Gladiators was looking closer to completion, offering a
tactical-focused approach to the real-time strategy genre, with
lots of frantic action rather than tedious base building and
resource gathering. And last but not least there was
Mistmare,
an ambitious first person role-playing game with skill-based
character development and some rather tasty looking graphics. We'll
be taking a closer look at that one later...

Just one of the strange looking locations you'll get to explore in Ring 2